Evergreens For A Little More Privacy

I was at my mother’s house this weekend, and I couldn’t help but notice that the backyard fence seemed a bit more exposed than usual.  I could easily see out the back window all the way to the road.  It seems that my father’s late-summer yard cleanup exposed a bit more than he’d expected.
This isn’t uncommon at all.  People often get overzealous with trimming or even eliminating trees and shrubs when they are lush and covered with leaves, only to discover come winter that they’ve cut away much of their privacy.  Winter, then, is the best time to plan where you’ll be planting fast growing evergreen trees and shrubs to serve as privacy hedges.  Evergreens are best for privacy because they maintain a mostly uniform level of screening throughout the year (plus they certainly liven up the yard in the bleak winter months).  Thujas are some of the most popular privacy evergreens, as they grow as much as three to five feet in a single year.  They have thick, dense foliage year-round, so they provide great privacy as soon as the first winter after planting, and they require little or no pruning to keep a wonderful conical shape.  Wayside Gardens carries both the classic Thuja ‘Green Giant’ and the newer, denser Thuja ‘Steeplechase.’  For faster growth, be sure to water thoroughly for the first year or two, and keep in mind when planting that it will need either room to grow to more than 25 feet tall or trimming in a few years.